


After All the Stops and Starts

by mcgarrygirl78



Series: Feels Like Heaven [6]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Drama, F/M, Family, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 18:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5881753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed and Olivia were taking it very slow.  It was so slow that for the most part he didn’t even think it was happening until a month ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After All the Stops and Starts

“Hello.”

“Hey, what took you so long to answer the phone? I was started to get worried.”

“I was taking a shit. I didn’t think that you wanted to share the experience.”

“You would be right.” Ed laughed. “How ya doin, dad?”

“I'm alright.” Jack Tucker replied. “My sciatic nerve is being a real bitch and screwed up my hunting trip last weekend. Doc is talking about surgery but I don’t know. I'm not a kid anymore, the recovery time would basically be until I died.”

“You could always come to New York.”

“For what?” Jack was skeptical.

“Surgery, dad. I'm not trying to convince you to move here…I stopped doing that a long time ago. But you could come for the surgery and recover here with me and Sean.”

“I wouldn’t want to cramp your style, Teddy.”

“I don’t have style, Dad. Just think about it. If the doctors think it’ll help then you should do it. You’ve got a good decade and some change left, you shouldn’t have to spend it in pain. How’s Tess?”

“She's good; shot two ducks last weekend and got one stuffed for me. He's a gorgeous Mallard. She's a real fine woman. I don’t know what she wants with an old booger like me but I don’t plan on looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

“You should make an honest woman out of her.” Ed said.

“Boy, you know I made a promise to your mama. Till death do us part and I'm still here.”

Ed didn’t want to tell his father how insane he thought that was. It was cruel and really none of his business. He knew how much his parents loved each other. They started dating when his mother was 15 and his dad 19. Married just a few days after his mother graduated high school, Ed came into the world less than a year later. 

His mother died when he was eight and his brother Christopher was three from complications with her third childbirth. His sister, who his parents named Charlotte, was born prematurely and died a few days later in the hospital. That was 45 years ago. When he was 12, his father started courting Lesley Morton. Lesley was a divorcee and owned a discount woman’s boutique in town. They were together for nearly 20 years. 

The two never married, never even moved in together, but the Tucker boys loved her like a mother and she was the mother of Ed’s half-sister Stephanie. It never seemed to bother Jack and Lesley that they weren't married or lived apart; they had busy lives and were great co-parents. Winona Lake, Indiana was a small town so it was a bit of a scandal. Stephanie was raised like all the other kids though. Once she went off to Washington State for college, Lesley decided to sell her business and head west too. 

Jack had lived in Winona Lake his whole life and didn’t plan on leaving. The relationship ended amicably and Ed’s dad was content being a single man. Tess Hunter came out of nowhere. She was 15 years younger than him but adored him. Ed thought his father was a lucky man…three women in a lifetime was almost asking too much. 

“Yes sir.”

“You only say that when you're not listening to what I'm saying.” Jack said.

“I'm listening. But I did call you to talk about something important.”

“Caitlin isn't pregnant, is she? Tess’ niece watches that show on MTV and its shocking. Maybe I'm just an old man but even I know what a condom is.”

“Cait is 14, dad.”

“I know. Like I said, shocking.”

“Cait is fine, this is something else. I met a woman.”

“Let me guess, she's a brunette?” Jack smirked.

“Like father, like son I guess. She's a brunette. I might fall in love with her, even though I've tried not to.”

“Why would you try to do such a thing?”

“We have history, dad. It’s not horrible but we've had our moments. She's a cop like me and my department has looked at hers more than once for crossing lines that don’t need to be crossed. We had a very antagonistic relationship but it’s changed over the years. It changed a lot in January. I bought her a drink and she saw me as something other than a jerk.”

“I have a feeling you're not calling me to tell me this woman doesn’t think you're a jerk.”

Ed and Olivia were taking it very slow. It was so slow that for the most part he didn’t even think it was happening until a month ago. Between January and April they went to dinner twice and had drinks once. There was a little flirty banter when they were together and no one was listening. That was it. 

Then she called him about a week after her adoption was legalized. She wanted to thank him for not making things harder for her and her squad when the whole thing with Johnny D went down. Ed assured her that had nothing to do with his feelings for her as a person and everything to do with it being on the up and up. This time she invited him to dinner. He accepted, and they kissed at the end of the night. 

It was another month before he had the courage to call again. He liked the kiss, he wanted more, and he didn’t want that to be a bad thing. They had been officially dating since June. Now summer was in full bloom in Manhattan and Ed Tucker had a girlfriend. At least he had until that night.

“I went to the bathroom, Dad. I was gone for five minutes, maybe even less. When I got back all hell broke loose.”

“ _Do you want to tell me who Claire is?” Olivia asked as Ed walked back into the living room from the bathroom._

_“Who?”_

_“Claire.” She held up his phone. “The woman sending you test messages, the woman who's thinking about you tonight.”_

_“You went through my phone? I didn’t know that was something that we were doing.”_

_“It buzzed while you were in the bathroom. I picked it up, it could've been work. Who is she, Ed?”_

_“Claire is a friend.” He replied, taking his phone and putting it back in hos pocket. It didn’t matter anyway, the damage was done._

_“What kind of friend texts you on a Saturday night and says she thinking about you? Are you sleeping with her?”_

_“No…she's a friend, Olivia. We haven’t talked in a while so maybe she was thinking about me.”_

_“How many other women are thinking of you, Ed?”_

_“I don’t know. Where is this coming from? I thought we were having a nice evening.”_

_“I don't know why I ever thought…” she sighed. “Just get out, you can go home and call Claire.”_

_“Are you serious?”_

_“Don’t I look serious? You’ve got other women texting your phone. How am I supposed to trust you?”_

_“I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here_.”

“No!” Jack Tucker interrupted his son’s story. “You didn’t really say that, did you? She was already upset and you just made it worse.”

“In hindsight, I probably could've chosen my words more carefully but I didn’t think this was something we were going to fight about.”

“Did she go off?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“ _I must’ve been crazy to think I could ever trust someone like you!” Olivia exclaimed. “You're an asshole and you always have been. I'm not going to be some notch on your bedpost, Ed. Get out of my house.”_

_“Liv, what the hell? All this from a text message? Do you want to call Claire? Do you want to ask her if I'm fucking her?” he pulled the phone out of his pocket. “Take it, take it and call her. Go ahead because I have nothing to hide.”_

_“I want you to leave…NOW! This was a mistake. You were a mistake_.”

Ed wanted to say something else but he knew that all it would do was escalate the situation. He'd had a couple of barnburners with girlfriends over the years. Looking back on all of them, there were better ways out of the situations than he may have handled it. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. He was going to put his shoes on and get out. 

If she wanted him gone than Ed would leave. This was definitely about more than Claire but Olivia wasn’t going to tell him what. So he bailed. Was it the right decision? He wasn’t entirely sure. But three weeks had gone by, it was August now, and they hadn’t spoken to each other. He sent her one text, _whatever I did I never meant to hurt you_. 

It went unanswered so Ed moved on. No, he didn’t move on but life went on. He worked and spent time with his kids and took his dog to the park. He'd even had dinner with Claire. She wanted to go back to his apartment but that wasn’t something he wanted. Ed wasn’t the kind of man to go backwards anyway. It was rare that he would fool around again with an ex, whether the ending was amicable or otherwise.

“I'm sorry son. These kinds of things don’t always have an explanation. I wanna tell you that if it’s meant to be it'll be but that’s bullshit too. Sometimes there's nothing harder in the world to fight for than what you want. Nothing good is ever just given to you.”

“I want to get her back, Dad. I want to go over there and demand that she listen to me. I think she's scared, I think she hates the idea that she might fall for me after the history we had. She's been through a lot, in her life. I'd rather not be in it then to be a source of pain.”

“But you love her?”

“I don’t know.” Ed replied, shaking his head. “That’s a strong word, a strong feeling. I know that she knocks me off my feet, makes me lose my breath. I know that I could easily spend a whole night just talking to her. She held my hand this one time and I got kinda giddy. It was like being in junior high again; like it was a really big deal. But she doesn’t need or want any more complications.”

“So you're just going to give up?” Jack asked.

“I think so. I've thought about not doing that and then I thought about her tasing me because she doesn’t want to be bothered. The world isn't like it used to be, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. You can't decide you just want to pursue a woman and her feelings be damned. Bullying a woman into giving you affection isn't sexy or charming…it’s basically a crime.”

“I could come to New York for a while, make sure you don’t get yourself in any trouble. Maybe while I'm there I could have that surgery or something. Maybe.”

“I miss you dad.”

“I miss you too, Teddy. I haven’t seen you since the holidays. I talked to your brother a few days ago…he's doing alright. He's probably going to divorce Sheila though.”

“I know; he called me. He's almost fifty years old and hasn’t grown up yet…she's his third wife. I told him he wasn’t allowed to have a fourth and if he did that I wasn’t coming to another wedding.”

“Your sister got an offer from Sarah Lawrence.” Jack said. “She might be in your neck of the woods soon.”

“Why didn’t she call me?” Ed asked.

“I told her to. I told her ‘call your brother and he’ll help you take care of things’.”

That’s what Ed did. He had been taking care of his brother and sister since they came into the world. Stephanie was more level-headed than Kip but he took his role of big brother seriously. It didn’t matter that they all lived hundreds, if not thousands, of miles apart. Family was a big part of who he was. In New York he was on his own and had been for a long time. 

He had his kids, loved them more than anything, but they were teenagers. Teenagers lived for the moment and themselves, if they were lucky. Ed didn’t want to burden his kids with looking after him. He was in excellent health and could take care of himself. It wasn’t always easy to be the glue that could hold it all together but there was no need to be a martyr about it. You did what you could and hoped the rest didn’t go completely to hell.

“Someone’s at the door, Dad.” Ed said. “I'm going put you down and go answer it.”

“No, you're taking me to the door with you.” Jack said. “I've seen that thing on Dateline, those push in robberies where people just crash through when you open the door.”

“Dad, you're in Winona Lake, what would you be able to do from there?” Ed asked as he walked to the door. “Also, I'm a 2nd Dan black belt in Aikido and certified in defense training through the FBI National Academy. I can handle myself pretty well.”

“Sometimes I forget just how great you are, boy. I'm going to take a little bit of credit for that whether I deserve it or not. And you're still taking me to the door with you.”

“We’re going there right now.” Ed laughed. He looked the peephole and couldn’t believe it. “Shit, its Olivia.”

“Who's Olivia?” Jack asked.

“She’s the woman, Dad, the woman I was seeing. I need to go and open the door.”

“I love you, Teddy…go and get your woman.”

“Love you too, Dad. Goodnight.”

Ed slipped his phone into the pocket of his track pants and opened the door. Olivia stood on the other side in jeans and white Gap tee shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun, Ed loved that look on her. She was also wearing sneakers. Full blown summer casual Liv made him want to pant like a horny teenage boy. The feeling lasted for about 90 seconds, which was nice. Then he wanted to know what she was doing there.

“I need to talk to you.” She said. “Can I come in?”

Ed stepped aside with no words and allowed her to do just that. Olivia stood next to the couch as he closed and locked the door. When Ed looked at her she actually met his eyes. This wasn’t going to be easy. She'd gone over and over it in her head; had talked herself out of it more times than she could count. It was over and probably better to let the whole thing be. 

Bringing it up again was going to cause another fight. One of them would end up saying something that they didn’t mean. It was going to get ugly. At least that’s what Olivia told herself whenever she thought she might need to fix this. Tonight, home alone while Noah went off with Trevor for Uncle stuff, she couldn’t talk herself out of it anymore. Liv hopped on the train and headed to Hell’s Kitchen.

“I guess it hasn’t started raining yet.” Ed said. He didn’t know how else to make conversation. Being shy or uncomfortable wasn’t Ed’s thing but he had no idea what Olivia was doing there.

“They said the storms are coming after midnight, and it could rain for at least 36 hours.”

“OK. You said you needed to talk. Here,” Ed motioned to the couch. “Sit down…if you want.”

Liv nodded and sat down on the couch. Ed sat down beside her, looking at her. She took a deep breath and knew it was just time to talk. It didn’t matter if she looked like an ass. She already felt like one so there was that.

“I don’t even know where to start so I’ll just say it. I was wrong, I acted like a jerk, and I'm sorry. I don’t even know what came over me.” Liv sighed.

“Your apology is accepted. Claire is just a friend; I have a lot of female friends. I'm usually busy at work and don’t see people much so there will be text messages from people asking to see me or wanting to know if I'm alright. I'm not in a relationship with any other woman, sexual or otherwise. I tried to explain that but you didn’t want to listen. You have an idea about me Olivia, and even if you're trying really hard to shake it, you can't. I can't be upset about that even if I want to be.”

“I don’t have an idea about you. OK, maybe I do but I'm wrong. I'm willing to admit that I've been wrong.”

“What's your idea, that I'm an asshole? I might be but I don’t cheat on women I care about…I don’t cheat. If I'm dating you then I'm not dating anyone else.”

“Maybe we can start over.” Liv said. “We can get to know each other.”

“I thought we were doing that.”

“I messed up.”

“I like you.” Ed took her hands. He wanted to say no, he wanted to ask her nicely to leave, and go on with his life. But the truth was that he had a thing for Olivia Benson. One more chance wasn’t asking too much…they'd done it a few times before. 

If someone would've said three or four years ago that Ed and Olivia would even be contemplating friendship he would've laughed in their face. It was never anything personal with her. He was doing his job, she was doing hers, and they clashed on more than one occasion. “Spending time with you makes me happy and it seemed to be making you happy too.”

“I was happy.” Liv said. “I don’t know if giving it another chance will work but I want to try.”

“We could establish some ground rules. It sounds a little silly but…”

“No,” Liv shook her head. “It might be good. Six rules, two a piece, and we don’t break them.”

“We’re only human, Liv.” Ed smiled. “And despite outward appearance, I've always been a rule breaker.”

“Can we try?” she asked. 

Liv didn’t want the answer to be no. She had messed this up she wanted to fix it. Not just so that she could say she did but because maybe she liked Ed more than she was even willing to admit to herself at the moment. How would she ever know if they let it end like it had a few weeks ago?

“I’ll get some paper so we can write them down. If you want to make yourself a drink then you can. How much time do you have before you have to get home?”

“I told Trevor I would pick up Noah by 10:30.” Liv looked at her watch. “I have over an hour.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Ed went into the bedroom. Ronin looked up from his relaxation spot in the middle of the bed. He thought it might be time for their nightly walk. Ed shook his head no before grabbing a small legal pad and a pen from the nightstand. He kept it there to write down thoughts before bed, on cases or whatever else was on his mind. 

He would also make grocery lists, write down the name of a song he finally remembered, or a lyric that he might be able to Google when he found a moment. Back in the living room, Liv was disappointed but not surprised that he had no wine. There had been Miller High Life in the fridge. It was the champagne of beers so she would just have one.

“Rule #1, we talk it out first. Whatever it is, communication is key.” Ed said as he wrote it down. Maybe if they started with the biggest one then they would have less to fight about later.

“Rule #2,” Olivia said. “We don’t touch each other’s phones or invade each other’s private space.”

“Would now be the time to mention I opened your medicine cabinet and looked in it once?” Ed asked. “It was wrong, and I knew that, but I just…it was right there.”

“It was wrong, but I've done the same to you. Twice.”

“OK, I'm glad that’s out of the way. Rule #3, we don’t sneak out on each other.”

“Do we really need to make that a rule? I only did it twice.”

“Let's keep it for the time being and see where the rest of this takes us. Rule #4 would be yours, Benson.”

“Monogamy only.” She said. “If we’re dating and having sex then I would feel extremely uncomfortable with you having sex with or dating anyone else. To be fair, I wouldn’t be doing it either.”

“Monogamous dating and sex is known in layman’s terms as a relationship.” Ed said as he wrote down the rule.

“We don’t have to label it immediately. But it'll be easier to do when the time comes if we already know what we’re jumping into.”

“You're adorable when you're making no sense.” He couldn’t help but grin.

“Ed…”

“No, I wrote it down. Monogamy only, it’s right here.” He pointed to it, and started writing again. “Rule #5, if and when we do have disagreements, no matter how big or small, we do not call each other out of names. No bitch, no asshole, no motherfucker…OK motherfucker can stay. If you call me a motherfucker I wouldn’t be that pissed. I will never call you a bitch or a harpy or the C word.”

“If you call me the C word I reserve the right to smack you in the mouth.” Olivia said. “Write that down, rule 5, amendment A.”

“Well that ruins the part I was about to write where we never let verbal arguments turn physical. Sadly, it happens faster than people realize when things are already heated.” Ed held out his hand and Liv handed him the beer. Ed took a nice pull and handed it back.

“We can still have that part of the rule with me holding on to slapping you if the C word ever comes out in anger. Write it all down.”

“OK, OK,” Ed laughed. “I'm writing it. You get to come up with Rule #6.”

“The past is in the past. The two people who are sitting on this couch tonight making rules are not those people. We move forward, we don’t look back, and we make the decision that whatever this is going to be good for us. It’s not a guarantee but it’s a promise that we don’t let events that took place prior to our first drink together affect anything in this relationship. Our time is now, that other stuff doesn’t exist.”

“That’s a good rule.” Ed nodded as he wrote it on the piece of paper. “So here we have the six commandments of Olivia and Ed. Rules can be added but we’ll never go above 10 because if we do it’s living by rules instead of living by mutual decision to like and not kill each other. That really wouldn’t be any fun.”

“I absolutely overreacted to a woman texting you and it was so silly.” Liv said. “I may have been a little jealous; I don’t even know why I let it get to me like it did.”

“May have?” Ed raised an eyebrow. “A little? O-K.”

“Look, just tell Claire you're doing fine and dating someone who is absolutely amazing.”

“I already did.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“We weren't exactly dating then.”

“I don’t go backwards, Liv. Claire is a great person and our relationship ended amicably. But I don’t slide back between a woman’s sheets because I'm hard up or she is. When it ends, it ends. If we remain friends then that’s good but friends with benefits with an ex is rarely in anyone’s favor.”

“You're going backwards with me.” Liv said. She took his hand again.

“No, I'm just trying to go forward with you…as long as it’s what we both want.”

“I hated you. I thought you were a jerk, a rat, and hell bent on breaking up my squad when we were just doing our jobs. You actually thought I committed murder. You didn’t listen to me when I've never been anything but a cop on the up and up.”

“You deal with people who rape and kill every day. Would it be a stretch to think you just couldn’t take it anymore? I was never hell bent on breaking up Manhattan SVU. I just don’t like cops who think they’re above the law. And sometimes, your two former partners really felt as if they were. You were willing to go through the fire for them, and did. I didn’t always think it was the best idea.”

“You're a good cop, Ed.” Olivia said.

“So are you.”

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a passionate kiss. Ed moaned softly as he stroked her back. Neither wanted to break away but soon the need to breathe overwhelmed their need for each other. Sighing, Olivia pressed her forehead on his.

“I have to go soon, but I think we should find time in the very near future to properly make up.”

“I’ll cook you dinner.” Ed kissed her twice. He knew he had to let her go. “I'm also going to write these rules on some nice paper, have them framed, and we can keep them someplace we’ll always be able to refer to them.”

“Like the marriage on the Post-It note.” Liv said.

“If I ever get married again I would definitely prefer it be on a Post-It note.”

“We can do dinner on Friday.” She stood from the couch. If she didn’t, it would only be a matter of time before some or all of her clothes came off. Who knew at her age that she could still get so hot under the collar?

“I’ll make sure that its Noah friendly.”

Ed got up from the couch too. He took Liv’s hand and they walked to the door together. He opened the door, holding her hand to his lips.

“Send me a text when you and Noah are home safely.”

“I will. Thanks for letting me in.”

“My door is always open for you, Olivia.”

She smiled and hugged him. She still had no idea what this was or what it could be but the feelings were there. Liv knew the feelings well. She didn’t always trust them and sometimes when she did, she got burned. For three weeks she talked herself out of going back. Her ending it had probably been for the best. 

The pull was too strong. That had to mean something. What was wrong with taking a little time to find out what? Liv’s life had changed so much in the past year and it was still changing. She had no idea when the ride would come to a complete stop.

“Goodnight.” She put her hand on his chest.

“Goodnight.”

Ed watched her go down the steps and then he closed the door. He needed to walk the dog first and foremost. Then he would call his dad back before it got too late. Surely Jack would want to know how it all ended. Of course this wasn’t really the end, it was just the beginning…again.

***


End file.
